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From a Reuters article about the TiVo-on-a-Comcast-cable-box:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Digital video recorder company TiVo Inc said on Tuesday the roll-out of its services is a “little behind” schedule.
The timeline they originally announced was “mid-to-late 2006.”
God, I love my TivoHD.
Last night I was working some magic with my Tivo, mainly because the Zap2It folks (who provide the data that Tivo uses to create their own guide data) haven’t figured out that MLB Extra Innings is now NHL Center Ice, and as a result my Sharks games are attempting to record on a channel four lower than they should be. Basically, until they get this fixed, my Tivo thinks it’s in Federal Way. This marks the first time I can think of that I’ve ever actively wanted anything associated with me to THINK it’s in Federal Way, much less actually BE there.
So, because of this, I had to go through the rigmarole of telling the Tivo which channels I actually get as opposed to what they think I get, so it doesn’t decide I want to see Weapons of Ass Destruction 4 and record 234 minutes of black screen on the pr0n channel, instead of the acting talents of Alexis Amore, Jasmine Byrne, and the acclaimed star of Monster Meat, Mandingo. (What?)
And because of THAT, my TV happened to be on a channel called “The Word,” which their own press kit proudly touts as “The Urban Religious Channel.” I quickly shouted down the urge to bounce up a channel and see if I could come across The Deaf Albanian Midget Cooking Channel. (I hear they’re delicious if you marinate them in a little teriyaki sauce first.)
Anyhow, it just so happened that I fired up The Word at exactly the right time to meet this man.
Yep. Leroy Jenkins. Priceless.
Well, not exactly priceless…in fact, looking at the Products section of his site (I’d link you there if it wasn’t all Flash), we find that his services come with a very specific price….$20 for a one-liter bottle of his Miracle Water. (But only $100 for a case of 24! That’s a savings of almost 80%! I’ll take six!)
Best part: his Web guy is taking full advantage of his doppelganger for SEO purposes, as shown in the metatags:
<meta name=”keywords” content= “Miracle Water, Healing Water, Faith, Testimonies, Book of Acts, Reconstructive Miracles, Healings of Leukemia, Healings of Sickle Cell Anemia, Healings of Seizures, Healings of Heart Disease, Healings of HIV, Healings of AIDS, Healings of Cancer, Healings of Broken Necks, Restoration of Hearing, Restoration of Sight, Resurrection, Nine Gifts of the Spirit, Gift of Prophecy, Gift of Tongues, Discerning of Spirits, Word of Knowledge, Word of Wisdom, Healings, Faith Magazine, Faith Books, Faith DVDs, Praise and Worship CDs, T-Shirts, Leeroy Jenkins, world of warcraft, Reverend, God, Christianity, Rev. Leroy Jenkins, Phoenix Arizona “>
Anyhow, I dunno where I’m going with this; I just wanted to share the white-hot rush of joy I felt when I discovered that Leroy Jenkins is a real person.
I’ve been meaning to comment on the current situation with the iPhone, but hadn’t had time to get around to it. Finally, today, I came across a piece that was so mind-bendingly STUPID that I have been inspired to action. In the past, you’ve seen me rail on technology writers. Now, I realize that suggesting there is a lot of bad writing online is a little like suggesting that water is wet, and I further realize that a lot of said bad writing comes from amateurs just looking to plug their website or make a couple of freelance bucks on the side writing a piece for Gamespot or something. That’s one thing. When a full-blown professional adult working for CNET screws the pooch, that’s something else again.
Enter Don Reisinger.
I first came across Mr. Reisinger as a guest on Leo Laporte’s This Week in Tech podcast from this past weekend, where he was brought on to discuss an article he wrote last week about how Microsoft just needs to throw in the towel on Windows Vista. Which would have been great if my experience and that of my collegues even came CLOSE to his talking points; I’ve been running it since February, and the LONE problem I have had with it traced back to a shareware application that doesn’t play nice with the Desktop. (And that the author can’t be bothered to update, but that’s another rant.) I personally know of NOBODY who has had the kind of experience with it that Reisinger claimed: that it crashes a lot, that it’s a resource hog, and that User Account Control is a nuisance. (Hint: if you’re using the OS the way you’re SUPPOSED to use the OS, the way 99% of users use the OS, instead of mucking around in Program Files and the Windows folder and whatnot, you barely know it’s there.)
So he jumped behind the wheel of the Microsoft Sucks bandwagon, and Leo, being the Mac apologist that he is, hopped right into the shotgun seat. Truly O’Reillyesque, it was. If it were a hockey podcast, he would have been Al Strachan. John Dvorak was out this week, so I’m guessing Reisinger was called in to fill the position of Blowhard Who Talks Out Of His Ass To Drive Website Traffic.
I thought hoped I was done with this guy. Then, today, I come across this little ditty, where he puts the blame on AT&T for the recent firmware update that has bricked hax0red iPhones. Apparently Apple is 0% responsible, since big bad AT&T has “forced” them to release this firmware, which renders phones that have been hacked to use on carriers outside of AT&T (temporarily) inoperable, and disables third-party apps that weren’t supposed to work anyhow.
What a crock of SHITE.
Never mind the obvious: when you hack ANY device, you’re taking your life into your hands; PSP owners can tell you a thing or two about that. But, Don: You do know, I hope, being the business expert that you are, that AT&T wrote Apple a BIG FAT CHECK for the right to be the iPhone’s exclusive U.S. carrier, right? And that Apple did not say “No, we don’t want to be beholden to you to keep hackers locked out of this device,” no, sir, they ran right down to their bank and CASHED IT. And while the world was finding out that freeing themselves from the shackles of AT&T was as easy as running a couple of apps on it, they were over in Europe accepting similar checks from O2, T-Mobile, and Orange!
Do I think the iPhone should be carrier-agnostic and that people should be able to run whatever apps they want to on it? God, yes. But the Apple fanboiz need to get it through their heads that Apple isn’t nearly the paragon of goodness and virtue that they think.
As for Don Reisinger: sir, please feel free to come up on stage and accept your Golden Slurpee, compliments of our good friends at 7-Eleven. Because….audience?
“YOU…JUST…SUCK!”
That’s right! Check us out next year as our broadcast comes to you from the armpit of America: Oxnard, California! Until then, good night!
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